08.29.06
Day 22 The Undersea adventures of …
not Jacques Cousteau as some of you may recall – but Mags and Murray 
!!!!!
Woke up to watch some of the broadcast of the Maori Queen’s funeral – it was fascinating to watch the mixture of tradition old and new – even if my Tour Guide 
just grunted when I asked him things about it – bless!
Anyway a treat was in store – we headed to down town Auckland to The Kelly Tarlton Adventure Centre …
Kelly Tarlton was a bit of an ‘adventurer’ who came up with the idea of building the first ever place where you could go walk among the fishes … 
This guy was the ‘grandaddy’ of all those Sealife centres alot of you will have been too – he bought the old sewerage works and built great perspex corridors and filled up the tanks (cleaned of course!) with pure filtered water so its really clear … and lots of fantastic fish…
One of the first creatures there was a short tailed stingray called Phoebe – who is still there – and is now the weight of 3 grown men! When she hovered over it was like a total eclipse!!! 
Sadly Kelly Tarlton died not long before the centre opened – but they carry on the work he started …
THE HIGHLIGHT though for me was …
THE PENGUINS!!!
There’s a special area for some King and Gentoo pengiuns who think they are out in the wild – but it means you can see them up really close!!!! 
You can’t touch them 
but you ride in a snow cat over an “Antarctic” waste land and get really close – and really cool pics – and yes we did ride on it 3 times !!!!! 
(my Tour Guide 
suggested it!!! Honest )
The Pengies were fab – they love playing up to an audience – there was some baby King’s who were huge brown fluffy things – but sooooo cute 
The “Daddy” was called Fat Boy … and weighing in at just over 24 kgs he sadly was well over my baggage allowance !!!! 
But spookily the penguin we saw at the Antarctic centre had appeared to have followed me to Auckland cos he was hanging about the shop at KT’s too …
Penguins and such
eagle eyed viewers may have noticed that I’m writing this at a very funny time and date – this is me contending with jet lag – arrived back in UK last night but am in London so if the smilies are a bit monotenous its cos I can only do so many from memory …
BUT still have loads to tell you all about … so just when you thought it was safe … am still very much in holiday mode ….
(and yes M I did try altering the datestamp – but it didn’t do it!!! feeling a bit 
now anyway)